Towards embodied general artificial intelligence, humanoid robots will become the reservoir of future industries

Recently, the 2023 World Robot Conference Humanoid Robot Technology and Industry Development Forum was held in Beijing. Xu Xiaolan, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that new technologies, new products, and new business formats represented by humanoid robots and general artificial intelligence are booming and are becoming the commanding heights of global technological innovation, a new track for future industries, and a new avenue for economic growth. engine.

At present, humanoid robots have entered the stage of industrialization. Experts said that the development of humanoid robots is a systematic project that integrates software and hardware capabilities and integrates multiple cutting-edge technologies such as general artificial intelligence, perception and control, and simulation. It is necessary to break technical bottlenecks, promote the integration and application of emerging technologies, and improve the motion intelligence and motion intelligence of humanoid robots. Cognitive intelligence will continue to promote the mature industrialization of humanoid robots and cultivate and expand the "reservoir" of the robot industry.

Integrating emerging technologies

Xu Xiaolan said that currently, general artificial intelligence technology has made breakthrough progress, providing an important driving force for the innovative development of humanoid robots. Humanity is ushering in the integration and development of humanoid robots and general artificial intelligence.

"The emergence of large artificial intelligence models represented by ChatGPT will create more new value for the industry." Yao Qizhi, winner of the 2000 Turing Award, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and director of the Cross-Information Research Institute of Tsinghua University, said that large artificial intelligence models The language processing ability of the computer can be regarded as a "brain". If we want to truly unleash the power of general artificial intelligence, the future AGI (artificial intelligence) needs to have an embodied entity so that it can interact with the real physical world and complete various tasks. Only in this way can technology bring greater value.

Yao Qizhi believes that to build a general-purpose robot with broad application capabilities, it must not only have the three main components of the human body, the cerebellum, and the brain, but also make it more adaptable to the human social environment. The human form is the most suitable form. "The body part must have sufficient hardware, such as sensors and actuators; the cerebellum controls the body and completes complex tasks by controlling multiple perceptions such as vision and touch; the brain dominates upper-level logical reasoning, decision-making, and planning to use natural language Communicate with other agents and the environment," Yao Qizhi said.

"Artificial intelligence can improve both the motor intelligence and cognitive intelligence of robots." Marc Raibert, founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics in the United States, said that the company has launched an artificial intelligence research project to improve the humanoid robot's understanding ability, self-learning ability, Conduct research on perception capabilities, data collection and analysis capabilities, and dynamic movement capabilities, and apply them to the company's humanoid robot Atlas products.

In addition, not only the use of software technologies such as artificial intelligence, the development of humanoid robots is also a systematic project that integrates multiple interdisciplinary and cutting-edge technologies. "For future robotics technology, hardware engineering and software engineering are equally important." Marc Raibert said that controlling humanoid robots has many complexities that do not exist in other robots, and software cannot overcome all limitations of hardware, and hydraulic systems still need to be continuously improved. , special valves, special batteries, advanced visual sensing, and the use of 3D printing to optimize the load of the humanoid robot to achieve structural balance, improve the humanoid robot's range of motion, strength and speed, and improve its flexibility and practicality.

Chen Jianyu, assistant professor at Tsinghua University's Interdisciplinary Information Institute and founder of Star Dynamic Era, said that humanoid robots are "masters" of robot capabilities. Robot power machinery and artificial intelligence-related technologies and applications can be given to humanoid robots.

Accelerate industrialization

Currently, a number of companies are accelerating the deployment of humanoid robots. During the 2023 World Robot Conference, Yushu Technology released the H1 humanoid robot, which achieves strong balance, running and risk avoidance capabilities. Each unit is priced at US$90,000 and is expected to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2023. The humanoid robot "Xiaoxing" of the Star Dynamic Era was unveiled. It has a self-developed high torque density motor, modular joints, and a fully self-developed integrated machine structure. Xiaomi demonstrated the humanoid bionic robot CyberOne and the second-generation Cyber Dog at the scene. UBTECH has released a multi-modal interactive system that is connected to a large artificial intelligence model to enhance the self-decision-making capabilities of the company's humanoid robot products. Zhiyuan Robot released the "Expedition A1" embodied intelligent robot on August 18. The whole machine adopts 49 degrees of freedom, including harmonic integrated joints, brushless planetary servo structure, and hollow cup joints, which is close to Tesla's solution.

Industrial manufacturing, commercial services and family companionship are the application scenarios with the most room for development of humanoid robots. Zhou Jian, founder, chairman and CEO of UBTECH Technology, said that for example, in the field of industrial manufacturing, humanoid robots with high levels of cognitive intelligence and motor ability are more capable of collaborative operations than quadruped robots and AGVs (logistics robots). The advantages. In terms of family companionship, the problem of human-computer interaction can be solved in the future. The action imitation ability of humanoid robots will be enhanced. Humanoid robots can understand people's life scenes and engage in "work" such as caregiving, cooking, and companionship and communication.

Zeng Xuezhong, senior vice president of Xiaomi Group, said that humanoid robots are the intersection of the three core competencies of technology, manufacturing, and service. They are also the commanding heights of the integration of software, hardware, and AI technology. They will have a huge role in promoting the upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the service industry. In line with the needs of Xiaomi's business development, Xiaomi humanoid robots enter the field of intelligent manufacturing.

Huang Xiaoqing, founder and CEO of Datai Robot Co., Ltd., said that intelligent robots can also be built into cloud-network integrated computing systems and communication systems.

Soochow Securities said that with the release of humanoid robot products by Tesla last year, the commercialization of humanoid robots has accelerated. Under the leadership of Tesla's humanoid robot benchmark, it is expected that the world will initially realize the commercialization of humanoid robots in 2025, achieving sales of 20,000-30,000 units. By 2030, new demand will be 1 million units, and sales are expected to exceed 10 million units in 2035.

Still in the early stages of development

Industry insiders said that the current humanoid robot industry is still in the early stages of development, and each company has different technical routes. For example, whether the feet of humanoid robots are bipedal or two-wheeled, companies will make choices based on their own technical advantages and future application scenario positioning. The humanoid robot industry has not yet formed a complete business ecosystem.

Yao Qizhi said that artificial intelligence technology still faces three challenges in the application of embodied humanoid robots: the lack of a unified dedicated underlying large model, insufficient computing power, and insufficient multi-modal sensory integration.

Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Yushu Technology, said that whether in terms of hardware or software, the current level of humanoid robot technology still has a lot of room for exploration. For example, in terms of perception capabilities, more reliable sensing equipment is needed at the hardware level. Currently, the ability of general large models used for humanoid robots to recognize and perceive the environment is still at the starting line. "Simulation first" is needed to target dynamic data of robots. set to train a new model. "At the current speed of technological development, there may be significant progress within ten years." Wang Xingxing said.

"In addition, in terms of hardware, if we want to achieve high levels of strength, speed, and precision while taking into account low cost, and in terms of software control algorithms, there are still technical bottlenecks to improve generalization, sophistication, and safety." Chen Jianyu said.

Zheshang Securities stated that from the perspective of basic performance, the current leading domestic humanoid robot manufacturers are at the same level as Tesla in terms of freedom and weight. Some manufacturers can even achieve more freedom and lighter weight than Tesla Optimus. . However, the current domestic leading manufacturer of humanoid robots still lags behind Tesla in terms of battery life.

Xu Xiaolan said that my country's robot industry has strong development momentum. The industrial scale has ranked first in the world. Basic core technologies have continued to make breakthroughs. Artificial intelligence has entered the first echelon in the world, laying a solid foundation for the development of the humanoid robot industry. "The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology takes advantage of its complete manufacturing categories, rich application scenarios, and large market size, and adheres to the engineering path of application traction, whole machine drive, software and hardware collaboration, and ecological construction to promote humanoid robot technology and industry to achieve high levels develop."